Wayfinding through the Storm

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Over 150 voices—young students, venerable alumni, movers and shakers, average folk, novice and seasoned teachers, Native Hawaiians, kama‘aina and fresh faces from abroad—share their experiences of the 1990s Bishop Estate controversy in Wayfinding through the Storm. This is the human story of a crisis that erupted at Kamehameha Schools in the 1990s and came close to destroying a historic educational community. Wayfinding through the Storm tells the story of ordinary decent people who looked deep inside themselves and found the moral courage to risk everything, to come together and stand up for what they believed in: to speak truth to power.

Coming into the ‘90s, Bishop Estate and Kamehameha Schools were flourishing. However, within a matter of just a few years, the all-Hawaiian board of trustees came close to bringing the estate to ruin. Dubious schemes, hatched behind doors in the boardroom, erupted one after the other in public scandals—ethical, moral, sexual, financial, political, legal, crossing the line into indictable crime.

Wayfinding through the Storm focuses on the crisis as it played out at Kamehameha Schools. Presented as an oral history, it is told by people who lived the story, in their own words. The book is comprised of interviews with Kamehameha faculty, staff, students, alumni, parents and friends, combined with court transcripts. The text is supplemented and augmented graphically through historic and contemporary photographs, cartoons and reproductions of documents.

Gavan Daws is the author of fourteen previous books, including the best-selling Shoal of Time; Holy Man: Father Damien of Moloka‘i; and Land and Power in Hawai‘i. He is also the recipient of several international awards for his documentary films and has been named a Distinguished Historian by the Hawaiian Historical Society.

Na Leo O Kamehameha, the voices of Kamehameha, are made up of Kamehameha faculty, staff, students, alumni, parents and friends.